WWP Thinks They Own Wounded Warriors?

Small veterans’ charity sued for “unfair competition” by Wounded Warrior Project
WTKR.com
BY MIKE MATHER
APRIL 30, 2015

The founder of a small Pennsylvania charity helping wounded warriors in that state says the group has spent more than $72,000 defending a lawsuit from the Wounded Warrior Project over their similar logos.

“We’re out of pocket a lot of money and I am sure they are out of pocket a lot of money,” said Paul Spurgin, the director of Keystone Wounded Warriors and a Marine who served two combat tours in Vietnam.

The issue is the similarity of the charities’ logos. The famous Wounded Warrior Project logo shows a silhouette of one soldier carrying another on his back.

The Keystone Wounded Warriors logo is also a silhouette of soldiers, but shows one dragging another across the ground. In a federal lawsuit, the Wounded Warrior Project declared it “has suffered irreparable damage to its business, goodwill, reputation and profits” because of the Pennsylvania charity’s logo.

The Wounded Warrior Project said the Pennsylvania charity’s trademark would likely “confuse” donors. In the most recent tax records available, the Wounded Warrior Project listed an income of $234,682,943. The Keystone Wounded Warriors income was $211,141, which is less than the salary of Wounded Warrior Project CEO Steve Nardizzi.

Nardizzi told NewsChannel 3 most charities change their logos or names when asked. He said he vigorously guards the trademark because it is among the charity’s most valuable assets.
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‘Wounded Warrior’ Charity Unleashes Hell—On Other Veteran Groups
Daily Beast
Tim Mack
May 4, 2015

Keystone Wounded Warriors Executive Director Paul Spurgin is dumbfounded as to why massive Wounded Warrior Project would spend the resources to sue them. Spurgin is a Marine Corps veteran who served two tours in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. (Wounded Warriors Project head Steve Nardizzi, on the other hand, has never served.)

What happens when a non-profit that was started to help veterans becomes the neighborhood bully? For a charity supposedly devoted to helping veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project spends an enormous amount of time suing or threatening to sue small non-profits—spending resources on litigation that could otherwise be spent on the vets they profess to serve.

At issue is the Wounded Warrior Project’s brand: the charity has become particularly litigious over the use of the phrase ‘wounded warrior’ or logos that involve silhouetted soldiers. At least seven such charities have discussed their legal problems with The Daily Beast.

The Wounded Warrior Project has become, in the words of those they’ve targeted for legal action, a “bully,” more concerned about their image and increasing the size of the organization than actually providing services to wounded warriors.

“They do try to bully smaller organizations like ourselves... They get really territorial about fundraising,” said the president of one charity with the name “wounded warrior” in their title.

“The lawsuit was just the coup de grâce,” he added. “They want us gone.” At issue is their similar logo and names—Wounded Warrior Project complained that they will “suffer irreparable damage to its business, goodwill, reputation and profits.”
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They don't own the word so if they're going after anyone using it they must be ready to not just sue the federal government with their Wounded Warrior Programs, Wounded Warrior Battalion, Wounded Warrior Regiment, but also the Native American Indians using it going back to the first time they used English and translated it. Oh, by the way, then they'd also have to go back to the ancient Greeks as well.

They sued Help Indiana Veterans too back in 2013

Charities for Wounded Veterans Wage Bitter War in Court
Courthouse News
By JACK BOUBOUSHIAN
Tuesday, November 26, 2013

"The Wounded Warrior Project has received extensive media coverage and corporate support, leading the 8th Circuit to write in an unrelated opinion that Wounded Warrior Project has "become synonymous with veteran service to this generation of wounded veterans and their families," according to the 31-page complaint.

Defendant Dean Graham, founder of Help Indiana Vets, who says he is a disabled veteran of the Iraq War, told Courthouse News the Wounded Warrior Project turned him away when he sought assistance after his discharge.

"I called them in the middle of my discharge from the Army," Graham said in an interview. "During that time that financially destroyed me and our family we ended up filing bankruptcy and lost everything. I contacted the project for help and was told by six different civilian employees, no, we don't give financial assistance."

Graham continued: "Once we started helping vets in Indiana, I got a call from WWP and they wanted to add us to their list of people veterans can call. So what they would do is ask people to contact local charities for help, even though they were taking donations for the WWP, and then put the burden of providing services on the local organizations.""
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